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The fact is that we do know a substantial amount about what works for youth who are committed to our juvenile justice systems.  Effective systems feature a range of services – a continuum of services – and do not place all or most offenders in the same type of program.  While the range of programs may vary, they are guided by research and characteristics of effective programs; youth are placed based on an assessment matching a youth’s risk to public safety and his specific needs; and the community is engaged and viewed as partners in program design, delivery and evaluation of outcomes.

NC4YC is proud to present the webinar: “Building a Continuum of Services for Youth in Custody:  Effective Programs, Risk and Needs Assessment and Engaging the Community”.  The distinguished panelists and moderator will engage participants in an interactive discussion regarding:

1.     Core elements of effective programs:  the components of a successful “Continuum of Services”
2.     Building the “Continuum of Services” by strategically aligning programs into an effective array of services
3.     Strategies for engaging the community at various levels of the Continuum of Services
 
Moderator:
 
Ms. Elissa Rumsey, Compliance Monitoring Coordinator, USDOJ/OJJDP
 
With Special Opening Remarks by OJJDP Acting Director, Ms. Melodee Hanes
 
Panelists:
 
Mr. Paul DeMuro
 
Mr. DeMuro has more than forty-one years experience working on juvenile justice and child welfare issues.  In the early 1970’s, he helped Commissioner Miller close the Massachusetts training schools, replacing them with an effective continuum of community-based programs.  Mr. DeMuro worked in Chicago where he planned and implemented a model juvenile justice diversion project.  In the mid-1970's, he became the first Director of the Office of Corrections Education for the Pennsylvania Department of Education; that office had the responsibility for all educational services in the state’s adult prisons and juvenile institutions.  Subsequently, the Governor appointed Mr. DeMuro as Pennsylvania's Commissioner of Children and Youth.  In that capacity he supervised Pennsylvania’s county-delivered, state regulated, child welfare system. In the late 1970’s, Mr. DeMuro joined NCCD; there as Vice-president for program services, he planned and directed several national juvenile justice initiatives, including a successful model program designed for violent offenders.
 
Mr. DeMuro presently serves as a senior consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation and to the National Juvenile Detention Association.  He has been involved in a number of the Foundation's child welfare and juvenile justice initiatives.  Mr. DeMuro has held appointments as a Federal Court Monitor for child welfare and juvenile justice consent decrees in Oklahoma and in Florida.  He currently is the Federal Court Monitor in a juvenile detention case in New Orleans.   He is an expert on conditions of confinement in secure facilities and has often been retained by the United States Justice Department, Civil Rights Division.  He also has substantial experience developing quality community-based alternatives to residential care for child welfare and juvenile justice children and youth. 
 
Mr. DeMuro has managed secure facilities and has designed and managed systems of model community programs.  He has co-authored a book on the California juvenile justice system (Reforming the CYA) and has edited a book on violent juvenile offenders (Violent Juvenile Offenders: An Anthology). He has published a number of articles and has written a variety of reports and studies regarding improving services for child welfare and juvenile justice children and youth.
 
Mr. DeMuro holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from Villanova.  He is married with four children and six grandchildren.
 
Mr. Tim Decker
 
Tim Decker was appointed Director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services in January 2007, and served for the past 27 years in a variety of leadership positions within the Missouri Department of Social Services and non-profit sector.  Director Decker previously served as an administrator with the Missouri Division of Youth Services from 1984 – 1993 as part of a major system transformation focused on more humane, therapeutic, developmental, and effective approaches to juvenile justice.  His community-based and statewide system change experience includes work with the Greater Kansas City Local Investment Commission (LINC), one of Missouri’s innovative public/private partnerships, and the Missouri Family and Community Trust (FACT) public/private partnership.  He served as a certified national trainer with Families and Schools Together (FAST) from 1999 - 2007, a model prevention program recognized by OJJDP and the SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices; and was a 2007 Graduate of the Institute for Education Leadership (IEL) Education Policy Fellowship Program.
 
Tim serves as a frequent presenter on topics such as juvenile justice reform, results-based accountability, family and community engagement; and organizational leadership, management, and culture change.
 
Mr. Michael Lawson
 
Michael Lawson is a Youth and Family Advocate.  Currently he serves as a member of the Working Group for the OJJDP National Center for Youth in Custody.  He also advised OJJDP on such issues as the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and those related to youth in adult confinement. 
 
Michael was certified as an adult at the age of 16. After spending time in an adult jail pre-trial, Lawson spent three years in the Nevada Department of Corrections and was released at the age of 19. Lawson has since turned his life around and is committed to helping other youth facing similar situations.  After having trouble finding a job his first 6 months following release, he now mentors high risk youth within the community.  Currently, Lawson is a Youth Leader at Remnant Resurrection Life Center, as well as an experienced dancer of seven years and a manager at a shoe store. Lawson's goal is to help the youth with morals as well as everyday needs of life.
 
When asked about what policy makers could do, Lawson replied, "It's not helping these kids at all.  We're trying to help these kids change their future. They're going to be running this government in the future. This is not the way we are going to get to them by putting a number on their back and putting them in prison and just shutting them away. If we were reforming and catering to more of their mental and basic needs, we would affect a lot of the youth and save a generation."
 
When testifying regarding PREA standards in June of 2011, Lawson stated,  “There is no way to keep youth safe in adult facilities.  If we are looking to rehabilitate youth and make the community safer, then we need to remove all children from adult jails and prisons.”